5 takaways from the one of the most successful companies in History:

1. Customer service

Apple always were client centric, some find the over friendliness and somewhat geekiness of their store people a little weird, but then again Steve Jobs said he likes ‘reprobates.’ Their mission is to make every Apple store like a 5 star Hotel for service, and they have come out very well for customer service if Bloomberg’s Business week rankings are anything to go by.

You don’t have to have massive stores in the top malls, but what we can learn is that if you are going to be successful you need to get inside your clients heads and make sure your people are happy and can always talk to someone quickly about anything that may have gone wrong.

Calling them up to tell them you have bent the new IPhone 6 around a lamppost isn’t really going to be met with a lot of sympathy though!

Make sure you have a phone number clearly visible on your website, so you can answer any questions customers have directly. Customers feel reassured if they know they can talk to another human being about issues with a product.

2. Do one thing, better

People say invent a better mousetrap, Apple were years ahead and made amazing gadgets which had the whole world singing. Their moto of do one thing better was always based around finding a need; the IPod just took the old Walkman and destined it for museums. They made personal music players awesome. If we all spent a little more time focusing on one thing making what we have look and perform better, how much more successful would we be?

Find one thing you are passionate about, give it love and nurture it with your full attention, don’t try three different projects in the hope one will work, you are dividing your passion three ways and the result will be a third of what you hoped, Make your business stand out, be a specialist in one thing.

3. Simple marketing techniques

Solve a problem, make people happy is the simplicity of Apple’s advertising campaigns, they understood the universal truth of emotion, as emotion needs no language, creed, class, colour, everyone knows happy! When they launched the IPod their first commercial was just about people dancing to their music that sat in their pocket, as they found a way for people to listen to their music better.

Marketing drives the market, if you can answer two simple questions; who will buy my product? (Target marketing) and more importantly; what will make them want my product? When you have that product and great marketing together, the world will beat a path to your door!

Now social media is driving the future of marketing and start-ups and small businesses can compete with global firms on YouTube and Facebook with little budgets and make great viral videos and competitions make sure you know how to market yourself effectively on Social media.

4. Get people excited

When I first started my Sales career at Kirby cleaners 30 years ago, they had a 15 foot banner on the wall and it said ‘Get Exited Nothing Is Sold without Excitement’

They knew about viral capabilities way back when!

Did our parents sleep outside a shop to get your house phone? Nope!

Apple did an amazing job at making being the first to own an Apple product cool so that kids spend nights on pavements, that alone was a stroke of genius because the news and press are going to want to know what these kids are spending a night in the cold for!

It doesn’t matter how great your product is, if you can’t get people excited about it, they won’t buy it or refer you to others. Referrals are the key to success: you want your customers to recommend you to all of their friends.

5. Charge more

The sales of Stella Artois larger did not go down because their advertising campaign featured broadcasted the slogan; “Reassuringly Expensive”

Price is always irrelevant if you have created the need. ll to often new business people struggle and slash their prices, when in fact they should charge more and give more.

Compared to competitors products, Apple’s are often between 2-5 times more expensive! But price doesn’t deter millions of people from buying Macs or iPhones. In fact, the higher price tag suggests to the customer that Apple’s products are better quality and more desirable than rival brands’.

It’s important when running a small business to provide competitive prices, but don’t undercut yourself. If you think you offer a better quality service, don’t be afraid to ask for a higher price. As long as you can communicate to prospective customers that you’re providing great value for a superior service, you may find you get more business!

Netmedia owners of the Biz-find franchise are UK Govt recognised small business mentors and can always be on hand to answer any small issues you may have, then just ask Netmedia